An aerospace manufacturer is a company or individual involved in the various aspects of designing, building, testing, selling, and maintaining aircraft, aircraft parts, missiles, rockets, and/or spacecraft. In the European Union, aerospace companies such as EADS, BAE Systems, Thales, Dassault, Saab and Finmeccanica account for a large share of the global aerospace industry and research effort, with the European Space Agency as one of the largest consumers of aerospace technology and products.

In India, Bangalore is a major centre of aerospace industry, being the place where Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, the National Aerospace Laboratories and Indian Space Research Organisation are headquartered.

In Russia, large aerospace companies like Oboronprom and the United Aircraft Building Corporation (encompassing Mikoyan, Sukhoi, Ilyushin, Tupolev, Yakovlev, and Irkut which includes Beriev) are among the major global players in this industry.

In the United States, the Department of Defense and NASA are the two biggest consumers of aerospace technology and products. The Bureau of Labor Statistics of the United States reported that the aerospace industry employed 444,000 wage and salary jobs in 2004. Most of those jobs were in Washington and California. Leading companies like Boeing, United Technologies Corporation and Lockheed Martin Corp. are among the most widely known aerospace manufacturers in the world.

Important locations of the civil aerospace industry worldwide include Seattle in the USA (Boeing), Montreal in Canada (Bombardier), Toulouse in France and Hamburg in Germany (both Airbus/EADS), the North-West of England and Bristol in the UK (BAE Systems, Airbus and AgustaWestland), as well as São José dos Campos in Brazil where Embraer is based.